This wine is special because the grape it is derived from does not _________ on the vine if harvested later in the season but rather matures into a full-bodied and flavorful fruit. flourish fade merge thrive coalesce languish
I did find all the right synonyms but had some trouble with deploying the math strategy here, despite having watched the solution video already.
Here’s what I initially did:
Notice that “but” is a contrast, so the idea before “but” should contrast the idea that the grape “matures into a full-bodied and flavorful fruit”. So, the idea is like “the grape dies on the vine”.
Notice that there’s a “does not” so this changes the logic to the “the grape does not survive/thrive on the vine”.
“Flourish” and “thrive” are the best answer choices to my semantic guess, so pick them.
Those were the wrong set of answer choices, and the right answers are “fade” and “languish”.
The speaker in the solution video did do the same thing on step 1. Instead of using “dies” like I did, they used “not maturing into fruit”. Yet, in step 2, despite acknowledging the need for a logic change, they changed “not maturing into fruit” to “dying”, which has the same meaning. Maybe I’m not seeing something correctly.
On hindsight, it does make sense that if “the grape does not thrive on the vine” (i.e. dies), then it wouldn’t be able to mature into a fruit. So it’s contradictory.
How should I be doing the maths strategy differently here?
Sorry, I thought about this but I’m still feeling confused. Why doesn’t the “does not” change the logic?
I definitely can feel like it makes sense by reading the examples below, but I think I’m misunderstanding something about the maths strategy that I can’t apply it correctly in a consistent way. Unless there’s an exception to the rule?
[correct] If harvested later in the season, the grape does not die on the vine but rather matures into a fruit.
[wrong] If harvested later in the season, the grape does survive on the vine but rather matures into a fruit
[correct] If harvested later in the season, instead of dying on the vine, the grape matures into a fruit.
[correct] If Ahmad studies more, he will not fail but rather pass his exams.
[wrong] If Ahmad studies more, he will pass but rather pass his exams.
[correct] If Ahmad studies more, instead of failing, he will pass his exams.
Attended the “Need help with a specific GRE problem? 22” session, and Ganesh pointed out that “not… but rather…” are not actually two contrasts, but rather are working together as one contrast (see what I did there). I think that’s what Max tried to convey to me above too.
IIRC the example Ganesh gave that helped me was: “the boy is not nice, but rather annoying.”
Another thing that helped was seeing “not… but rather” as similar to other support/contrast words that come in pairs, like the following from Gregmat’s list:
“rather… than…” - “I would rather eat spinach than eat brocooli”
“just as… so does…” - “Just as a well-tended garden flourishes, so does a community thrive with care and cooperation.”
flourish